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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Those wanting more individual freedom and economic equity must vote for Obama this November

By Marc Jampole

As it turns out, when you put the voters leaning one way or
another in the respective columns of President Obama and Mitt Romney (I am
reluctant to call him governor, since he has repudiated everything he did as a
Governor of Massachusetts), there are only 3-5% of likely voters who are
undecided.Thus, all the hundreds of
millions that the candidates are spending have the goal to capture the votes of
very few people, plus, of course, to rally the loyal troops to actually step
into a voting booth and push the appropriate buttons.

This relatively small number of people still undecided
underscores how polarized our politics and our country have become. What’s most interesting is how the
polarization tends to play out consistently. On social issues Republicans want
to control private life, while Democrats don’t want to intrude; whereas on
economic issues, it’s the exact opposite, with Democrats wanting to intrude on
marketplace relationships and interactions, with Republicans wanting a laissez
faire approach.

The polarization takes place along a wide range of issues,
as the following handy-dandy chart encapsulates:

Social Issue

Republicans

Democrats

Abortion

Intrude on private lives

Don’t intrude

Gay marriage

Intrude on private lives

Don’t intrude

Birth control for women

Intrude on private lives

Don’t intrude

Promotion of one religion

Intrude on private lives

Don’t intrude

Rewriting science & history

Intrude on truth

Don’t intrude

Economic Issue

Republicans

Democrats

Environmental regulations

Don’t intrude

Intrude on marketplace

Labor and employment regulations

Don’t intrude

Intrude on marketplace

Minimum wage

Don’t intrude

Intrude on marketplace

Support of emerging industries, e.g., solar and wind
power, nanotechnology and space research

Don’t intrude

Intrude on marketplace

Support for schools, healthcare and the poor

Don’t intrude

Intrude on marketplace

Privatization of government functions

Don’t intrude on free market

Intrude: Let government do it

The only ways in which the polarization is not consistent
with this pattern are the two big money issues: 1) Who will pay for the
services and benefits that government does provide its citizens, or in the
privatization scheme of things, finance? 2) In paying for our debt, how will
the money flow, from the poor and middle class as it has for the past 30 years
I dyspeptically call the Reagan Era, or from the wealthy to the poor and middle
class until we return to the mix of wealth we had in from about 1945-1975?

The really strange thing about the deep political division
in the country is that most of the people who believe fervently in the
Republican positions on key social issues suffer from the Republican position
on economic issues, and are among the biggest losers if the Republican
positions on taxation and government spending prevail.

Why would these Republican for social issues put up with
policies that lead to their own economic decline?If they just tended to their own communities
and families instead of trying to impose their religious views on others, then
everyone could do what they wanted. They could then vote Democratic for
economic issues and have more money to live their own lives or give to their
church.

The economic-issue Republicans such as Romney and Ryan
cynically support the efforts of the social-issue Republicans in a kind of
grand bargain with the devil, or should I say angel.

We know the economic-issue Republicans have to make the
bargain, because if they didn’t, they would be severely outvoted in every
election. Even with voter suppression tactics, it’s pretty hard for 1% to beat
99% at the polls.

But why do the social-issue Republicans make the bargain?

I think it’s for one reason and one reason alone: racism.
The social right wing believes that all the social and government investment
programs primarily help minorities, whom many still hate or fear, even if they
currently tend to mask these emotions with the kind of code language
proliferated by the new sophisticated breed of race-baiters such as Rick
Santorum and Newt Gingrich. They tend to like the benefits they receive, such
as social security and Medicare, but demonize other government benefits such as
food stamps by incorrectly putting a black or immigrant face on them.

The economic right wing has been spewing its laissez faire
economics and economic Darwinism since the Gilded Age of the middle of the 19th
century. But uneducated urban and rural whites began to listen to and agree
with the economic far right only when government benefits were opened to
African-Americans (and women) in the 1960’s. Goldwater was considered a
dangerous extremist figure. A mere 16 years later, years of civil rights
strides, Ronald Reagan defeated an incumbent president with the support of the angry
white working class and the then incipient evangelical movement.

Is it worth it to social conservatives to allow their allies
to perpetrate a financial rape on 99% of the population of the country? Do they
think of it as a purifying scourge of extreme poverty and hardship, as the
wealthy continue to collect and hoard money thanks to low taxes, little
government wealth redistribution, privatization and wage policies that suppress
the income of most?Instead of dragging
heavy chains, wearing scratching barbed clothing and carrying heavy crosses as
in late medieval times, maybe the Christian right wants our society and most of
the people in it to just gradually get poorer and poorer, while the plutocrats
bid up the prices of fine art and baseball cards.

If it weren’t for the entertainment value, I’d be pleased that Texas Governor Rick Perry is foundering in the Republican presidential race. After all, Governor Perry, who is in an unprecedented fourth term as chief executive of the nation's second-largest state, still might get the Republican nomination for president. If that happens there’s no telling what the voters might be fooled into doing. Just look at how far George W. Bush got.